Pendleton and Varnish out of team sprint

Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Varnish are out of the women’s team sprint gold after the commissaires ruled they made an irregular change in their semi-final run.

The ruling sees them relegated to second place in their race which means they are out of the competition.

The pair had ridden themselves in to the gold medal final with a time of 32.567 seconds in the semi-final. Only China were faster in 32.422 as the pair set two successive world records.

China will ride for gold against Germany while Australia will race for bronze against the Ukraine who lost to Great Britain in their semi-final ride.

The UCI rules state:

A team shall be relegated to the last place in the stage of the competition if one of the following infringements has been committed:

1) if a rider draws away by more than 15 metres before the end of the lap that he is to lead2) if a rider does not draw away by more than 15 metres after the end of the lap that he was supposed to lead3) if one rider pushes another.

Pendleton will return for the keirin and women’s sprint, sadly that’s the end of Jess Varnishes Olympics.

In the men’s team sprint Great Britain qualified fastest, despite a slip by Philip Hindes coming out of the gate forcing a restart.

LairdDrambeg

Does “draw away” mean pull above the red sprinters’ line? I’ve looked at the video umpteen times, without a good slo-mo, and VP was clearly at least half a wheel behind JV at the start-finish line. The only offense that I could figure would be that JV “drew away” before the 15m mark but I could not see that because the video had switched to the the dual parallel view by then. Any thoughts?

BTW it looked like the Chinese offense was in fact pass before the line but it was impossible to tell because of the fuzzy picture. Oh, and the commissaire was a really annoying character – he was wallowing in his smug self-regard and importance – reminds me of some of the French fonctionnaires I’ve come across in their govt. offices.

Jon

Maybe they need to paint the +/-15m zone on the track or extend the distance. Were speeds lower when this rule was introduced?

kevin davies

`The rules state they will be relegated to last stage in that competition, i assume that is the leg? or dsqd from competition as happened to GB?? i dont agree you cannot appeal as you an in any other form of sport?

Terry

How did GB get DQ’d and China relegated 1 place for the same offence ????

ade

surely those rules dont count in this instance as they specify ‘he’???

montani3semper

What was done wrong? Pull out before or after allowed? Please clarify! Whose fault was it?